Burned out empires
by Inkfire
Summary: Worlds fall apart around the Doctor - one tiny hope, impossibly real, and he can feel Gallifrey burning all over again. He is not alone. /A drabble set during the very last minutes of Utopia.


**Here is another Doctor Who drabble, taking place during those dreadfully intense last minutes of _Utopia_. Title is inspired by lyrics from _The Sharpest Lives _by My Chemical Romance. Enjoy!**

* * *

"You – are – not – alone."

He's probably never run faster in his life.

He's been shouting things, right into Martha's panicked face, fierce denial and questions whose answers he's desperate to get and terribly, terribly _frightened _to accept. Drumbeats and fob watches and a man he called genius just minutes ago, _heavens _– but it can't be, can it? It's impossible, entirely impossible. He is the last of his kind.

Still – he runs, and his lungs feel like they're about to collapse, his hearts twisting in his chest.

This is Utopia, humanity's mad dash from horror to bliss, from pain to perfection, to _harmony_. So much hope, so human. He might be much too old to ever hope like this again, and he doesn't know where to stand, so he runs, throws himself ahead with no idea what to expect. _The skies are made of diamonds_, a child said to Martha, like it would have made the glory complete. He's seen acres of diamonds before, stretching as far as the eye could see, forming worlds and planets. They were hard and cold, unmovable. Gallifrey's skies were made of fire, and oh, it _burns_ through his insides as he collides with the door, that eternal bitter smouldering craving for home.

He calls, he screams, pressing his hands, his screwdriver to harsh, unresponding stone; he could sob, trapped there outside as he is, and Martha and Jack are shouting, alarmed, twisting their necks to look back, but hell could be on their heels instead of just the Futurekind – he would still not care one bit about what's coming _behind_, only about what might be happening _ahead_.

"Professor, whatever you do, don't open that watch!" he yells, but it must be too late, and there is no such thing; what happened before _too late_, then, before that tiny, absurd, terrifying possibility that _he is not alone_? If he could, would he stop it – does he mean it? He knows the answer in his bones and he doesn't know anything, not any longer, for anyway _this cannot be true _and it is, it is.

Inside, he finds a body on the floor, and still sees nothing but the man, Professor Yana, staring at him with eyes that hold nothing of that irrelevant name any longer – nothing but ancient, cold fire. He runs again, but the door of the TARDIS slams like a punch to his gut; it nearly sends him reeling as he presses desperate hands to so-familiar wood, fights with the key, with his screwdriver, struggles, shouts again.

"Let me in, _let me in_!" he bellows, pointlessly.

He stumbles back, and stares at his TARDIS, shaking. He's still talking and calling out, because he's the Doctor, that's what he does – the Doctor talks, builds ways, victories and futures with sheer words, out of thin air. And this is when he fails. The Master isn't listening. The Doctor begs, with a vulnerability in his tone that is almost unheard of, something raw, like pain and loss and guilt and a hope that may be the most destructive thing of all. He says this name, _Master_, tastes it on his tongue – so bittersweet –, shudders. He says _I'm sorry_, and he is; for a thousand things. He cannot quite place most of them. Still – he is, has always been dreadfully sorry.

He can point his sonic, be ever so clever and block the TARDIS' coordinates to two solid points in time, but in the end his ship goes, leaves him. One thief replaces another; his hearts are racing so fast, resonating against his ribcage like he is really nothing but pulsating muscle, hard bone and the empty space in-between. The TARDIS leaves empty space all over him, his hands and head are aching and he could simply open his mouth and _scream_. Tiny squares are gleaming painfully clearly in the middle of his eyesight; the glow of regeneration through the windows, making everything else a blur. He stands there, shaking hard.

Martha is screaming, and Jack grabs his arm; of course they escape, topple through time and space, land roughly. His lungs are working – his brain is working. He straightens up and acts like he can find answers anyway, somehow. (_He's the Doctor._)

He is a madman without his box, though, and he feels _naked_, his frantic pulse hammering a beat of four.


End file.
